The New Star Wars Canon

Since April 25, 2014, it’s been a brand-new galaxy.

Now, I can’t say I was deeply ensconced in the old Expanded Universe, which was declared “non-canon” about a year and a half after Disney acquired Lucasfilm. I’d read all the original Marvel comics, the 10 books that had been released prior to 1990 (the three movie novelizations, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, Brian Daley’s Han Solo Trilogy, and L. Neil Smith’s Lando trilogy), and maybe the first dozen or so of the new wave that began with Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy.

Once it got past there, it became too much to keep up with. Which was crushing, because the secret I never told anyone was, I wanted to be the walking Holocron. I wanted to know the whole canon story, and there was just getting to be too much of it. Wookieepedia, the next best thing to the Holy-Grail-secret-database that Leland Chee kept at Lucasfilm, was still a twinkle in its creators’ eyes.

Now, with a rebooted canon and my own website, I can hold so much more of overarching story in my head (or have it available at a click or three in a way that it isn’t on the very detail-oriented and outlandishly incredible Wookieepedia).

When you ask ‘is it canon?’ The answer means ‘do other storytellers need to take it into account?’ That’s all the answer means.

Which is, of course, different from what we as fans think “canon” is, on first blush. But when you really think about it, it’s actually the same thing. Does a moviemaking storyteller, for example, have to take into account some crazy thing that happened in LEGO Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles? I think not. (In fact, we did a whole episode on “LEGO Canon.”)

Though the Lucasfilm Story Group says the review process for them is the same regardless of the age of the audience, I’m drawing a line in the sand and suggesting that all that *really* matters is anything written for middle school and up. As far as I can tell, that’s the age range in which we actually learn new and substantial things about characters, groups, and events in the Star Wars galaxy.

Thus, the following list, which will be updated as new works are released.

Episode I – The Phantom Menace

Obi-Wan and Anakin (comic book series)

Episode II – Attack of the Clones

The Clone Wars (movie and TV series)

Here, according to Leland Chee – @HolocronKeeper and part of the fabled Lucasfilm Story Group – is the chronological story order of The Clone Wars episodes (the first digit represents the season, and the remaining digits represent the episode number, in the order they aired – “T” = theatrical release, I believe, and “S4” = all of Season 4):